May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Good Morning.
Today is the First Sunday after Christmas. And while the image of the baby Jesus in the manger is still fresh in our minds, John explains to us who Jesus is and why his birth was so important for us.
But the first day after Christmas, December 26, is devoted to St. Stephen, the first martyr of the gospel of Christ. His story is found in the Book of Acts, chapters 6 and 7. He was the first to demonstrate that being a disciple of Christ is not easy. It is often full of hardship and difficult choices. And it often leads to death.
Maybe not here in San Diego, but globally, more people have been killed for their belief in Jesus during the past 100 years, than in all the other centuries combined.
Stephen stood firm against the church leaders of his time and stood for Christ. And he paid the ultimate price for it. But he also received the ultimate reward for it from God.
In today’s Gospel, John explains to us why we should have the same kind of faith that Stephen and the other martyrs have, and why Jesus is worth it.
The first 18 verses of John’s Gospel are some of the most eloquent in the entire Bible, and it is packed with theological insights. This morning I’d like to expand on five aspects of Christ that John mentions.
1. Eternal
2. Creator
3. Incarnate
4. Saving
5. Welcoming
1. In the beginning… (Verse 1)
Verse 1 starts with “In the beginning…”
But at this time of year, we sometimes think of Christmas as the beginning. The birth of Jesus. The start of a great work by God.
But it’s not the beginning; it’s really somewhere in the middle.
John began his gospel with the words “In the beginning” for a reason.
Those are the same words that open the book of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, which every Jew was very familiar with.
And he referred to Jesus as “the Word” or logos in Greek. The Greek term logos was also used by many philosophers to mean “reason,” the force that structured the universe.
By calling Jesus “the Word,” John calls him the embodiment of all God’s revelation in the Scriptures and thus declares that only those who accept Jesus honor the law fully. Jewish people considered Wisdom and Word divine, but distinct from God the Father, so it was the closest available term John had to describe Jesus.
John also understood that “the Word” or “logos” meant something very specific to his Greek and Hebrew readers of the time. The Old Testament and Jewish picture of God was of him creating through his preexistent wisdom or word.
According to the standard Jewish doctrine during John’s lifetime, this wisdom existed before the rest of creation but was itself created. So by declaring that the Word “was” in the beginning and especially by calling the Word “God,” John goes beyond the common Jewish conception to show that Jesus is not created.
Plato, who was a key Greek philosopher, believed that Earth is a shadow of the perfect reality in the heavens — that behind everything is a perfect thought, or logos.
Philo, a famous Jewish philosopher, took it a step further, saying that behind the perfect thought must be a perfect thinker.
And John brought it all together, saying that logos … the Word … God… is not a philosophy, but rather a being combining both the perfection and the thinker.
2. All things came into being through him … (Verse 3)
Since Jesus is God and has been since before creation, he is responsible for whatever is created. As John says in verse 3, “All things came into being through him…”
That means that Jesus is the creator, and that everything else is a creation. As difficult as it is to believe that the universe was a random occurrence — and many people do believe that — it becomes even more difficult to reject a creator when you really look at how huge it really is.
Let’s think big for a moment. Commentator Jon Courson points out that our sun — such a key factor of life in San Diego — is so big:
• 1,300,000 of our Earths could fit inside it
• But 64 of our suns could fit in Anteres, which is a fairly tiny star in our galaxy
• And 110 million Anteres could fit in a big star like Hercules
So Hercules, that one single star among many others in all the other galaxies, is large enough to hold:
• 110 million Anteres
• each containing 64 of our own suns
• with each of those suns holding 1,300,000 Earths inside them
So, as Courson has said, universally speaking, we’re pretty much just a speck on a speck on a speck — but we tend to think of ourselves as pretty speck-tacular instead, don’t we?
Now, let’s think small. Again Jon Courson points out that:
Each water molecule has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. And atoms are pretty small.
However, if we increased the size of each atom in just a single drop of water to the size of a grain of sand, there would be enough sand to make a slab of concrete one foot thick and a half-mile wide extending from here in San Diego to New York City.
Yet many people believe that random chance accounts for the creation of the universe. John shows that we have a creator.
And when we turned from our creator and headed on a path of destruction, he became one of us so that he could bring us back to him. IN verse 14 John says, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory…”
3. And the Word became flesh and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory … (Verse 14)
The word “lived” in this verse, and other translations like the King James and the NIV use “dwelt,” (skay-NO-oh), is actually translated as “to fix one’s tabernacle or tent. John’s word choice is deliberate and he’s telling us that just as God had tabernacled with the Israelites in the wilderness, so had the Word tabernacled among his people in Jesus.
In the Old Testament, God’s tabernacle was pretty hard to miss. It was a huge, ornate, and tented structure. And God was visible as a pillar of fire by night and a column of smoke by day. The ancient Israelites really had to work at ignoring God with his tabernacle right in their midst, but they managed to do it quite often.
Likewise, it takes a lot of effort for us to ignore Jesus tabernacled among us and within us, but we often do. Other things just seem to distract us.
(Illustration - Leonardo Da Vinci’s Cup)
When Leonardo da Vinci was 43 years old, the Duke Ludovinco of Milan asked him to paint the dramatic scene of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples.
Working slowly and giving meticulous care to details, he spent three years on the assignment. He grouped the disciples into threes, with two groups on either side of the central figure of Christ.
Christ’s arms are outstretched. In his right hand, he holds a cup, painted beautifully with marvelous realism.
When the masterpiece was finished, Leonardo told a friend to look at it and give his opinion.
The friend exclaimed, “It’s wonderful! The cup is so real I can’t take my eyes off it!”
Immediately Leonardo took a brush and drew it across the sparkling cup, saying, “Nothing shall detract from the figure of Christ!”
But we often let the worries and distractions of this world detract from the figure of Christ in our lives, don’t we?
It’s been said that the god we place foremost in our lives is what we find our minds drifting to most often. Is it money? Our car? Our video games? Our job? Celebrity gossip? Whatever it is, if it’s not Jesus, we are dimming the light and wandering back into darkness.
St. Patrick wrote a prayer that’s now in our hymnals. It’s particularly inspiring and helpful to anyone who wants to follow Christ. It’s called “St. Patrick’s Breastplate.”
Here is part of it:
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
As John points out, Christ has tabernacled in our midst. And he did it to save us from the consequences of sin. And we know what behavior is sinful, because he told us through Moses.
Moses let us know what God’s guidelines are. And then we knew for sure that we were violating them.
Driving at 50 miles per hour seems OK until you see a sign letting you know that the speed limit is really 30. If you continue to drive at 50 miles an hour, the judge will find you guilty of speeding every time.
So John tells us in verse 17 that “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ …”
4. The law indeed was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ … (Verse 17)
If you compare the two, you’ll find that when the Law came down, 3,000 people died. That’s in Exodus 32:28.
When the Holy Spirit came down, 3,000 people were saved. That’s in Acts 2:41.
That’s the difference between God’s Law and God’s Grace.
Victor Hugo, in his book, Les Miserables, gives a great example of grace. In the story, an ex-convict named Jean Valjean, who was imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family, is forced to carry around a yellow ticket for everyone to see that he’s an ex-convict.
With that ticket displayed, he tries to get a room at an inn, even offering to sleep in the barn. But the innkeeper throws him out, telling him that they are law-abiding, Godly people.
In despair, Valjean sits outside a house and laments:
And now I know how freedom feels
The jailer always at your heels
It is the law!
This piece of paper in my hand
That makes me cursed throughout the land
It is the law!
Like a cur
I walk the street
The dirt beneath my feet.
Just then the bishop steps out of the house, sees Valjean, and invites him inside for food, drink, and rest, offering him a bed sleep in, and shelter from the cold outside.
So Valjean accepts the Bishop’s offer, eats a hearty meal, and steals the silverware in the middle of the night. When the police catch him, he tries to tell them that the bishop gave him the silverware as a present. So the police bring him back to the bishop’s house to prove he’s lying.
When they arrive at the house, the bishop comes running out the door holding two silver candlesticks, which he gives to Valjean, telling the police that he forgot to give the candlesticks to Valjean when he gave him the rest of the silverware. So the police release Valjean and they walk away.
Valjean is now puzzled about why the Bishop would have saved him from going to prison, and even give him more silver.
At that point the Bishop turns to Valjean and says:
But remember this, my brother
See in this some higher plan
You must use this precious silver
To become an honest man
By the witness of the martyrs
By the Passion and the Blood
God has raised you out of darkness
I have bought your soul for God!
And that’s just what Jesus did for us. We were imprisoned by the law, sentenced to eternal death for our sins against God, but while we were still sinners, Jesus rescued us from our accuser, Satan, and offered us even more blessings than we can imagine. He bought our soul for the Father.
The Law condemns; but Jesus gives life.
John understood the parallel when he wrote this Gospel.
Victor Hugo understood it when he wrote Les Miserables.
But for some reason, we often fail to accept it for the gift it is.
(Illustration – Loving God’s Son)
In his book Bible Windows, Ivor Powell tells the story of a rich man who died and left no heirs. When his estate was auctioned off, an elderly lady dressed in shabby clothes was the only one to bid on the picture of the dead man’s son. The wealthy father had cherished it because his only child had died at an early age. But the crowd that gathered for the sale showed no interest in it. When the woman who bought the portrait was asked why she wanted it, she said she had been the boy’s nurse many years before, and had loved him dearly.
Later she examined the picture closely and noticed a bulge in the heavy paper on the back. Making a small cut, she removed an envelope which turned out to be the man’s missing will. The document very clearly stated that he wanted to leave his property to the person who still held dear the memory of his beloved son.
How dear do we hold God’s son?
Through our belief in Jesus, the Father promises to makes us sons as well.
As John shows us in verse 12, “… to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God …”
5. But to all who received him, who believed in his name,
he gave power to become children of God … (Verse 12)
Mary and I love animals. We have a little Chihuahua named Duke. When he’s hungry, we feed him; when he’s cold, we warm him; and when he’s scared, we comfort him.
He knows it, and constantly searches for us. If we leave him for any period of time, he cries for us, and when we return he stops whatever he’s doing to come running up to us to be held and comforted. He’s content to be held in our arms or our laps all day long if we’d let him. We love Duke, and he looks to us for everything in his life: food, water, shelter, comfort.
Sometimes I think God wants us to be a little more canine in our devotion to him.
You see, we have a God who’ll do the same thing for us if we would just look to Him as our first resource instead of as our last resort. And even when we look to him as our last resort, he still welcomes us.
He sent His only Son into this world to offer us eternal glory and salvation. But we have to let go of whatever is preventing us from putting Christ as foremost in our lives and accept the gift of our master.
Just like Jean Valjean.
Just like Duke.
This idea is reinforced by our reading from Galatians today. The Aramaic word that Jesus and Paul used to refer to our Father in Heaven is “Abba.” The most accurate English translation for the cultural use of that term is “Daddy.”
If you’re ever in a Middle-Eastern marketplace, you’ll see that term come to life as small children who have lost their parents in the shuffle cry out “Abba! Abba!” and then run into their daddy’s arms when the find him.
When we pray to our Father in Heaven, let’s always remember that he’s not some distant patriarch of an unknown age —
He’s our Daddy. And he loves us more than we can even imagine.
Through today’s Gospel reading, John shows us five aspects of God. The eternal creator became incarnate as one of us, to save us from ourselves, and welcome us into his kingdom.
So there can be no doubt that Jesus, and only Jesus, as the creator of the universe, has the power to save his creation. If we believe him, and follow him, we are saved.
Amen.
